The Ray’s Sexuality

The Ray has a long history in comics, and has gone through a lot of changes throughout the years.

The first Ray was "Happy" Terrill, who was published by Quality Comics. Quality was bought by DC Comics in 1956, and in 1973, the Ray was grouped with other Quality characters as the Freedom Fighters, superheroes from Earth-X, a world where World War II never ended. Following Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985), the Freedom Fighters were established on the new Earth as active during WWII.

In 1992, DC introduced a new Ray, Ray Terrill, who was the son of the original Ray. He went on to join the Justice League, and has also been on teams such as Young Justice and a new incarnation of the Freedom Fighters.

Following Infinite Crisis in 2005, DC introduced a new Freedom Fighters and a new Ray named Stan Silver. He's not very important. Another new Ray, Lucien Gates, was introduced in The New 52, but he's not very important either.

A couple years ago, Grant Morrison redesigned the DC multiverse in a series called Multiversity (2014). He brought Earth-X back, but made a few changes; in addition to the world being called Earth-10 and now having a Justice League, albeit one that works for the Nazis, the Freedom Fighters were made up of people targeted by the Nazis. With that in mind, the Ray was now homosexual. It's not clear which Ray this is, but he's dressed like the original Ray.

In August 2016, DC announced it would be making an animated series called Freedom Fighters: The Ray, set on Earth-X and part of the multiverse that the other DC CW shows (Arrow, Supergirl, et al.) belong to. They also noted that this Ray would be Ray Terrill and the art they released with the announcement showed him wearing a version of Ray's classic outfit.

Surprisingly, Freedom Fighters: The Ray didn't debut until over a year later - December 8, 2017. This version of The Ray actually made his first appearance in the Arrowverse crossover "Crisis on Earth-X" the week before (November 27-28, 2017). That's why I noted when the show was announced, because in January 2017, DC released Justice League of America: The Ray - Rebirth #1, which introduced Ray Terrill to the new Reborn DC Universe - a Ray Terrill that happens to be gay.

Now, you may be thinking this could just be coincidence. Maybe the show and the book independently decided to base their Rays on the Multiversity one. That's possible...except check out which characters got Justice League of America spotlights:

The Atom is on Legends of Tomorrow (and that suit is based on his appearance in the show). Killer Frost is on The Flash. Vixen is on Legends of Tomorrow and Vixen (and that suit is based on her appearance in the show). And The Ray is on Freedom Fighters: The Ray. All CW shows, all part of the Arrowverse. I don't think that's a coincidence.